Last Christmas, Sgt. 1st Class Joe Wertz was still recovering from injuries that could have killed him during his last deployment.
“I got a little too close to an IED, I had a bunch of internal damage,” Wertz said.
The Rock Island Arsenal-based soldier earned a Purple Heart medal recently. He has served four tours of duty in Afghanistan and Iraq.
He was away from his wife and four children for Christmas in 2010.
His wife, who is an Army veteran, says it was tough for her to play the role of mom, Dad and Santa.
“It was horrible. He was in Iraq at the time, my youngest was two months old, him missing her first Christmas,” said Julie Wertz.
The Wertz’s are one of hundreds of families helped by the USO office on Arsenal Island every year. Opened in 2011, it holds programs for spouses and kids left behind by deployments. A support network, especially over the holidays.
“It can be difficult, especially for a spouse with little children. They’re trying to keep the family together, little ones. It’s tough,” said Jackie Inman, who runs the USO office.
Inman says more than 52,000 servicemen and women and their families live within a 150 miles radius of the office. More than 30,000 have passed through the door in the past three years.